


Friendship's Warmth

by Tsuki (lunarrainbows)



Category: Bleach
Genre: Christmas fic, Fluff, Gen, Holidays, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-01
Updated: 2012-06-01
Packaged: 2017-11-06 13:39:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,439
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/419521
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lunarrainbows/pseuds/Tsuki
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What was supposed to be a great vacation had vanished, leaving a certain redhead in a bad mood. Add in two blondes, Christmas cookies and hot chocolate, and everything gets worse. In the spirit of the holidays, a secret is revealed. But what is it?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Friendship's Warmth

**Author's Note:**

> This is a three year old oneshot that I wanted to move here. Christmas themed...well, sort of. I don't own anything but the plot here!

**What's Loneliness Within Good Company?**

It had to be the damn hollow's fault. If it didn't show up when it did, he would be on a train to Osaka, drinking a cup of hot chocolate as he tried to ignore his boisterous father. Instead his Shinigami Representative badge began to blare; causing him to stop packing his clothes and forcing him to rush out the window in his shinigami form. _Fuck, I had to miss a winter vacation for this? I need to kill something._ Ichigo's thoughts were anything but benevolent, echoing his current state of mind. Letting his hand tighten its grip on Zangetsu, a shiver passed through his form as a gust of wind blew through the nearly silent square.

"Shit, why the hell didn't I go and grab anything to keep me warm on the way back?" Normally he would use shunpo to make the trip back to his house quicker, but the falling snow coupled with his exhausted state made things troublesome. There was one good thing about the cold; it numbed the pain from his wounds, making it just a bit easier to move around. The bad thing for him was that it didn't do it fast enough for him. He could feel the numbness starting to set in, trying to overtake the throbbing, sharp heat that accompanied the pain that was washing over his body in waves.

"Now what's poor little Ichigo doing out in the snow?" someone asked, the taunting tone grating on his already frayed nerves. The young vizard knew that voice, as much as he wanted to say that he didn't. It belonged to a blonde annoyance that he was actually proud to say that wasn't Urahara. It was someone that was almost annoying in his mind though. Only one other blonde he could put up at the same pedestal that Urahara stood at, and that was the source of his annoyances lately, Hirako Shinji.

"What are you doing here?" he snapped, glancing at the blonde briefly before looking the other way.

"Now now Ichigo, do you have to be that way?" Shinji replied, spinning his hat on the index finger of his right hand. Taking his left hand that was buried deep within the pocket of his jeans, he gestured to the café nearby. "Since you're so cold, how about I buy you a cup of coffee?" he offered with a grin.

"Shinji, are you completely stupid?" he asked flatly, pausing for a moment to let his statement sink in. "I'm in my soul body dumbass, what do you think will happen when someone sees a coffee cup being drank by something invisible?" he snapped out, feeling the urge to throw something at the smirking vizard.

"Hey, I was actually being nice, let up will you?" With a sigh he set his hat back upon his head and turned to his younger companion with a grin.

"What's that look for?" Ichigo had a good reason to be wary, he still didn't know much about the vizard before him even if he was slowly becoming more familiar with him. There was just still too much that was still in the dark, things that he needed to find out for himself.

"You sound like I'm going to send ya to your doom. Lighten up; it's nothing even remotely like that." Reaching forward and grabbing his wrist, his grin turned into a smirk. "Besides, you look like you could use a nice cup of eggnog, ne?"

Ichigo felt the sudden rush that came with shunpō; he glanced around him in slight confusion before he realized were they were. "Why are we on the other side of town?" he asked, more than ready to head back home. Standing under the hot running water of his shower sounded extremely inviting to him right now. "I could be taking a hot shower now, tell me what the hell are we doing here before I decide to go home like I was going to do in the first place!"

Shinji laughed. "You didn't even realize where we were, you really must be out of it." Grabbing the back of Ichigo's haori, he pulled him into the shop. Urahara's shop.

Groaning softly in irritation, Ichigo glared at Shinji. He didn't want to have to deal with Urahara's crap right now; he just wanted to go home and relax, was that too much to ask for? Really, he could've just decided to head to Osaka by himself to surprise his sisters, but there was the fact that he needed to find a train that was going there at this late in the week. As far as he knew, there wouldn't be one until someone next week. "Shit." He hissed as he let himself settle against a wall. Well, at least it was warm in here.

"…Hey brat, I told you that you needed to go and sweep the porch off!" Jinta yelled out, startling the whole house with the noise. If the crash in the room next to them was any indication as to how loud the boy was, Ichigo felt that he needed to be shut up for a while.

"Oi runt, didn't I tell you to stop picking on Ururu?" he commented loudly as he reached forward across the table that he was half hidden under for a stick of pocky. Chewing it slowly, he groaned.

"What the heck are you doing here strawberry?!" the redhead yelled from the back of the shop, not even bothering to come out to yell at him.

Snorting he gestured briefly to the strangely silent blonde beside him. It was his fault that he was here after all, and he could just feel the amusement rolling off of him too. There was another in the room that he knew would get on his nerves soon enough. "Geta-boushi, you need to find a better flavor of pocky than blueberry. Not everyone likes that you know." He complained to the amused man in the doorway.

"Why Kurosaki-kun, if I decided to get any other flavor it would be gone before I even got to have a piece. What would you prefer me to get, strawberry?" he teased. Opening his fan with a click, he hid the amused grin behind it as he took in the sight of his two guests. He could already tell that the teen wasn't all that happy with Shinji, and to turn that displeasure onto him wasn't something that he had in mind.

"I'd rather you shut the hell up." He replied, leveling the shopkeeper with a glare that didn't phase him much. It seemed like Urahara was used to his glares, should he resort to something other than them to get his point across? Eh, he'd think about it later.

Laughing lightly Urahara glanced at Shinji. It wasn't every day that he saw the two in a tentative comfortable silence. Something had to be up with one or possibly both of them for this to be the case. Sitting down on the opposite side of the table as them, he snapped his fan shut and smiled at the two. "Now what has brought you two here to my humble abode?" he asked pleasantly.

Ichigo rolled his eyes. There was nothing humble about this place. "It was this baka's idea." He muttered, sticking his thumb out at Shinji. "Kept saying something about eggnog or something. I wasn't paying much attention to him anyways." He said with a smirk.

Shinji pouted. "Now that's mean Ichigo, really mean. I brought you here so you wouldn't be alone in your big house and this is how you thank me?"

This drew his attention quickly. He hadn't told either of them that he would be on vacation with his family, so how in the hell did they know? "Just how in the hell did you know that?" he snapped out, letting some of his irritation leak out through his words.

"Oh you know how Isshin is, he can't help but to brag about anything and everything that he can." Urahara commented offhandedly, waving a hand dismissively.

"That and he can be such a talkative idiot when he's drunk too." Shinji chimed in with a devious smirk.

Bronze eyes flew open in shock. "Just what in the hell were you thinking getting goat face drunk? Do you know just how fucked up he acts when he's dealing with a hangover?" Ichigo growled out, moving to grab Urahara by the front of his haori and shake the living daylights out of him. Shinji, seeing that he had the idea to do so, pushed him back in his seat.

"Don't go and kill Kisuke here Ichigo, he was just doing it to cheer the guy up."

Raising a brow Ichigo glanced at him confusedly. "Just what do you mean by that?" Taking the offered cup of hot chocolate by Ururu, he turned a questioning glance at the humming blonde sipping his hot chocolate happily. "You know we were coming or something?" He wouldn't put it past Urahara; the man had an innate ability to know more than he should.

Shinji didn't answer him. It wouldn't do much good to bring to light that things weren't all just happy go lucky when it came to Isshin, and to do it during the holiday season? That would just be cruel. "Maa, let's just forget about that for now. What we should be focusing on are the cookies and hot chocolate in front of us." He chirped out, snatching a heavily iced Christmas cookie and taking a big bite out of it.

Ichigo scoffed. "I'll get you to tell me sooner or later." He muttered, taking a bit of a cookie himself. His eyes widened briefly before sliding slut in bliss. Damn these cookies were good! They reminded him of Yuzu's cookies, which was a bit surprising to him. He only thought that Ishida was the one that could cook just as good as his sister. "Hey, these are good." He commented as he finished his first cookie, reaching out to the cookie platter to grab another. "Just who made these anyways?" he asked before biting into the heavily frosted and sugared treat. "Was it Ururu?"

Urahara tilted his head to the side. "Ururu-chan? I'd rather not let her near baking. While she can make a fine miso soup, she tends to burn almost anything when she's let near the oven.

"There's no way that the runt could make them, and I'm really doubting that Tessai-san did, so who was it?" he asked as he lifted the mug of cocoa to his lips, blowing over the rim to cool it off. The pleasant warmth from the hot liquid in the mug was traveling up his frosty hands, slowly warming them up. It was really helpful, and he didn't have the mind to turn down a free cup of hot chocolate and Christmas cookies anyways.

"At least you like them Kurosaki-kun. It's been a while since I've wanted to bake anything." Urahara said pleasantly before he grabbed a cookie of his own and bit into them. "They came out so wonderfully this time." He said to himself, savoring the sugary treat.

Shinji snickered in amusement at his statement and the shocked state that Ichigo slipped into. "You should've just said that Ururu made them, or even that Quincy friend of his. He'd probably believe either one. Instead you had to go and admit that you made them. What were you trying to do, shock him into silence?" he asked, not bothering to conceal his amusement any longer. He had known for years that Urahara was a great baker when he had the motivation to do so, but if he didn't have that motivation, his creations tended to be lackluster. It was more of a guarded secret that Kisuke kept close to him, and only the ones that took the time to know him were privy to this simple fact.

"Geta-boushi can bake?" Ichigo asked softly, glancing at Urahara with shock. He had no idea that the shinigami had such a talent; he figured that either Tessai-san or Ururu took care of the preparation of food. He couldn't even begin to think of the things about himself that he kept hidden. Shaking himself out of his stupor, he glanced at the shopkeeper pointedly. "You should do this more often. I never knew that you could make something that tasted so good. I thought you left the cooking to Ururu and Tessai-san."

Chuckling, the grey eyed blonde shook his head. "Why Kurosaki-kun, there are a lot of things that you don't know about me still." He pointed out.

Shinji grinned. "If Kisuke decided to bake for you more, you'd end up getting fat."

Ichigo huffed. "Yeah right, I'd just burn it all off through training like I do already when I'm done eating Yuzu's cookies." He retorted and took a sip of the hot chocolate that was held within his hands.

Setting his fan in front of him on the table in favor of picking up another cookie, Urahara hummed in contentment before addressing Ichigo. "I'll make you a deal Kurosaki-kun. I'll make you more cookies if you promise to train with both Shinji and myself at the same time. No more hiding and sneaking around."

The teen was silent for a few moments, his bronze eyes glancing between the two. Shinji looked hopeful, and Urahara had an expression that was positively evil upon his face. Damn it and those cookies of his! "Fine. Just as long as you make more of these cookies, they're damn good." He agreed.

Urahara was positively joyful. "I can manage that I think." He murmured as he glanced at Shinji, sharing a conspiratorial grin. There would be a lot that they could introduce the young vizard to together, and to their amusement the reason for their eventual joint training regimen had to deal with a secret that Kisuke let slip. That and the wonderful plate of cookies that greeted them when they appeared at the shop. Who knew that a scientist could make a cookie that tasted that good? Ichigo surely didn't, and he would let this day be one of the pleasant things that he didn't know before that had surprised him this year.

The day had started out great and quickly turned south, only to be saved by the two most unlikely people of all. In the end he was grateful that the two decided to keep him within the shop. It was better than being alone in his house the whole night.


End file.
